Donald Trump’s Values Are In Direct Conflict With The Founding Fathers’

Donald Trump’s Values Are In Direct Conflict With The Founding Fathers’

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Peace on Earth? Goodwill to men?

Hardly. The latest terrorist attack in Germany has added a cruel exclamation point to a holiday season already punctuated by unspeakable assaults on the very idea of humanity. The so-called Islamic State (IS) has claimed credit for the Berlin atrocity, in which a tractor-trailer intentionally plowed into a popular outdoor Christmas market, killing at least 12 people and injuring dozens more.

Meanwhile, in Syria, President-elect Donald Trump’s new ally, Vladimir Putin, has aided dictator Bashar Assad’s decimation of the city of Aleppo. While thousands of battered civilians have been allowed to leave in the last several days, hundreds had already been killed by Syrian, Iranian and Russian forces, according to human rights groups. (Yes, Putin has long been an ally of Iran, a country the United States considers one of its most worrisome antagonists. That adds to the irony of Trump’s association with Putin.)

There is little that we can do to quell the bitter hostilities between rival Muslim groups, Sunni and Shia, that date back thousands of years, or to stop the conflagration that threatens the stability of the entire Middle East. President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq only made matters worse, setting up the conditions that led to the rise of the Islamic State group.

But the United States, which proudly declares itself the leader of the free world, should certainly not be aiding the forces of darkness. Not only has Trump allied himself with Putin, but he has also basked in anti-Islamic bigotry that adds fuel to the fires of a clash of civilizations.

After the Berlin attack, the president-elect boastfully referred to his campaign pledge to ban all Muslims from entering the country: “You know my plans. All along, I’ve been proven to be right. One hundred percent correct.”

Actually, that’s 100 percent wrong. It’s a violation of the spirit of the Founding Fathers, who proposed a pluralistic republic free of the religious wars that had burned through Western Europe. Further, it aids the IS, who can point to Trump’s ban as proof that the United States is waging war on Islam. It’s a potent recruiting tool for jihadists.

At its heart, IS ideology is a war on modernity — a vicious and nihilist battle against religious pluralism, liberal democracy and women’s rights. In response, the United States ought to be doing everything possible to shore up the very values that the IS hates.

Trump is doing just the opposite. He is waging his own nonviolent, but nevertheless destructive, battle against religious pluralism, liberal democracy and women’s rights.

While his misogyny is by now well known, Trump’s assaults on the institutions that underlie liberal democracy may do more lasting damage. He lies repeatedly about democratic processes, insisting, for example, that the last presidential election was marked by massive voter fraud. It was not. That bold fabrication was apparently meant to explain away his significant loss of the popular vote. He seems to have backed away from his pledge, made during a debate, to send Hillary Clinton to jail when he became president — the sort of move that is popular among Third World dictators. But he is prickly enough and unpredictable enough to use the powers of his office to silence his rivals.

He shuns the advice of experts such as the intelligence advisers who ought to be giving him daily briefings, if he would accept them. Indeed, he is assembling a Cabinet full of leaders who are either completely ignorant of the offices they should lead (Ben Carson as secretary of Housing and Urban Development) or hostile to them (Rick Perry for Energy).

Trump blasts the mainstream news media, one of the fundamental institutions of a free state, as rigged against him, and he will likely undermine their function. And, despite his pledge to “drain the swamp” in Washington of influence-peddlers, he seems to be building a corrupt kleptocracy, allowing his adult children to use the Oval Office to assist his business interests.

The United States has stood as a beacon to the world — a “shining city on a hill” — because of the values we represent. Trump’s autocratic and ethnocentric views are the antithesis of what this great nation has stood for. He is a better friend to the IS than he knows.

Cynthia Tucker won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2007. She can be reached at cynthia@cynthiatucker.com.

IMAGE: Donald Trump hugs a U.S. flag as he takes the stage for a campaign town hall meeting in Derry, New Hampshire. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Cynthia Tucker Haynes, a veteran newspaper journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner, is a Visiting Professor of Journalism and Charlayne Hunter-Gault Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at the University of Georgia. She is also a highly-regarded commentator on TV and radio news shows.

Haynes was editorial page editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper for 17 years, where she led the development of opinion policy. More recently, she was that newspaper’s Washington-based political columnist. She maintains a syndicated column through Universal Press Syndicate, which is published in dozens of newspapers around the country. Besides winning the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2007, Haynes has also received numerous other awards, including Journalist of the Year from the National Association of Black Journalists.

87 Comments

Gee..you think? Donald Trumps Swamp is full of misogynist cronies who believe intelligence is based on how many billions they can amass. What does that make Einstein? They believe success is based on money and nothing else. What does that make Tesla? 44 Presidents ALL understood that the minute they are sworn in they must uphold the US Constitution.

But Trump the Arrogant thinks he will do it all differently than those 44. He is so much smarter than all 44 right? He is so much more successful right? Course now, some of those 44 served in wars, face to face with their enemies and didn’t have Conway for an interpreter of what “Mr. Trump is saying.”

He may THINK he can do it all differently and that swamp he drained now has only billionaire cronies who are not going to work in the interests of the American people. As such, the first time Trump or one of his YES men step out of line from the Constitution, he is gone. His right wingers now this but they love the win, win, push the envelope, dangle the carrot until someone rams those carrots down their throats until they choke on their own vomit.

The very fact that no decent, honest American celebrity will appear at Trump’s inauguration should be an indication of his toxicity level. The very fact that Trump and you seem to be in synch only proves you have lost what little of your sanity you possessed.

He is not a president. We’ve had 44 and we know what a president is and must be. Trump is a skank who was his mommy’s little darling..and hated daddy until daddy handed him a few hundred million to get sonny out of daddy’s hair.

You can’t talk sense to EW. She told me in a reply that she hoped for anther 9/11 attack on my state and other states so the people in other states could feel the horror of human ashes falling on them and other terrible things. She wants thousands of innocent men, women, and children to be murdered for her own ego.

Check yourself before you further wreck yourself, itsfun. With each post you show the deplorable state of your mental faculties which are slowly atrophying as I type this. Each passing day finds you more infatuated with yourself than the previous day.
Like the Wicked Witch of the West, you and your mind are MELTING, Melting, melting, mmmmm…….

Godzilla, we need to put you out. Keeping people out of a country, unless they have proven to be criminals or failed to meet visa criteria based on unbiased reasons, won’t work, and you know it.
Your phony Merry Christmas motif, and equally phony greetings, just serve as indicators of a satanic and inhumane nature having no interest in spiritual matters—it’s a simple as that. For you, it’s all about the materialist aspect of Christmas.
So, stop pretending to have religious sentiments and be man enough to bare the warts that pockmark your outer and inner configuration. No need to hide behind the sheets anymore, Godzilla. Trump has given you permission and license to strut down the streets of America in full regalia with face unmasked.

Ah, Godzilla. Did you see his former avatar when he had his picture on it? I never saw a person with so little space between his hairline and eyebrows. His claim to knowledge was that he played football in high school. Ask any high school teacher about the football players. They are not allowed to fail if their grades have to be dummied.

No, I didn’t have the pleasure(horror?) of seeing it. I think the current avatar fits him quite well. Too many blows to the head, even at high school level, may alter the brain with effects that last into adulthood—thus, we have Godzillas. As for those who never had blows to the head, something more subtle and insidious is at work.
If you find out what it is, please let me know.

Agreed, 100%. I suspect our area of disagreement is that sadly the democrats have done basically the same thing. Chuck Schumer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Nancy Pelosi, these people are wholly owned by their donors, are multi millionaires just like the sick Cons, and couldn’t give a crap about the working people of this country beyond allowing a few minority faces entrance to the club of ripping off working people. It’s sad really. And please, please don’t jump to the ridiculous idea that I am a sick Con or a disgusting Trump supporter. Nope, but it’s not one side or the other, Goldman Sachs owns both of them.

well, the thing is…The republicans do it for the money the power the greed, and for self aggrandizement….the Democrats, may do it, but they at least try to help other people…whereas, the entire GOP is all about Hurting and Killing and Hurting folks some more…that it what the gop does with their accumulated wealth…Think about what the Koch boys do with their money…and how they use it for evil…

When we allowed politics to be taken over by money and when lobbyists became so powerful, both parties have been forced into catering to those with the power. The difference is that the Republican Party is owned by the money.

Three times they have violated United States law and no one seems to care that this is the beginning of the end of democracy.
1. Forty seven cutsie racist senators wrote a letter to a country that the President was in negotiations with.
2. Congress refuses to adhere to the Constitution of the United States of America when they refuse to consider a presidential appointee who has made that appointment as per Article II of the Constitution.
3. The CIA violated the Hatch Act when they became actively involved in politics.

Putin, Assad, Iran, Trump—What an un-Holy Quartet. Together, they each and all are in direct conflict with decency, normality, civility, and all other attributes that define what a true human being was created to be.
Trump and his supporters, although not actively engaged in fighting in Syria or in motivating certain police officers to take aim at the black community, nor are most of his supporters actively engaged in terror attacks in cities in America and harassing women wearing hijabs, they all contribute indirectly to the breakdown of morality in America. For them, short-term personal benefits, or benefits for those characterized as “white” is all that matters, and Christmas or any other reference to Religion are moot and subservient to political agendas. (The GOP must be given a lot of credit for hastening the demise of moral values, which all the more show how ludicrous the oft-used term “The Moral Majority” sounds today as it did when first echoed back in the 80’s).

The quartet’s amorality and callousness, along with that of nativists and jihadists, show a willingness and comfort with separating Religion and religious sentiments from one’s daily life. The “unHoly 4-plus” demonstrate the effect of this separation, which is equivalent to a mutilation of the soul, as indicated by their personality disorders on the surface—disorders mirrored by a lust for power and control, preoccupation with themselves, nativist sentiments, and a voracious appetite for material consumption and acquiring “stuff”.

As a terrifying aside, both maniacs, Putin and Trump, want to reignite stockpiling of weapons. We already have enough to completely destroy the inner planets of the Solar System, along with Uranus, Neptune, and some asteroids.

Just how blind and stupid are you? It has been Emperor Obama that has set race relations back 50 years. It has been your messiah that has endorsed and invited a terrorist group, BLM, into our White House. So it has been your Emperor that has promoted the killing of American police officers. Aren’t you supposed to still be blaming Bush for all your ills?

No surprise here. You racists have hated the president since before he even took office and tried to claim he isn’t an American, and fabricated all sorts of lies about him, which you personally faithfully repeat here, clearly having neither the brains nor the courage to make up your own. It really is fun laughing at your stupidity, however “illiberal” it may seem.

They are probably all members of a white supremacist group – modern day nazis. It is a sad thing when the only thing a person can be proud of is the sickly, pink pasty color of his skin. Shows they are pretty much useless to civilization as they did not accomplish the amount of melanin in their skin.

No one is nearly as blind and stupid as you are, except for Otto, itsfun, Godzilla, and the rest of the crew.
As for the tripe you taxed your small brain to type, it’s meaningless twittering like a sparrow.

Bigots like you have set race relations back. I’m betting there’s been nony emperor in recent history named Obama, so you clearly haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.
I love how you of the party of racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia try to blame those you seek to marginalize and abuse are to blame for your hatred. Your lies and projection only continue to prove the truth of the saying “if you get all the fools on your side, you can be elected to anything.” But I guess we must rely on fools for entertainment in these times.

Thanks for making my day, and – considering the source – your flattery.

This is so sad – that there are hateful people who want to believe the worst because a person is Black. They fabricate what isn’t there. They are a scourge and a detriment to Democracy. I wish their mothers would have aborted them.

If President Obama set race relations back as you say, it was not because of his policies but rather because of the color of his skin over which he had no control. And if black lives don’t matter then neither does yours. You are not fit to shine any of their shoes. What must it be like to live on a daily basis filled with hate? I feel sorry for you.

I love how you liberals like to assume so much. Black Lives Matter is a domestic terrorist group promoting the murder of white police officers. Might want to get off that very high horse you seem to be on.

Kep, please try getting a life. And do try to get your GED next year, or attend some college courses.
Don’t continue to settle for mediocrity; get off your donkey of ignorance, and mount the steed of insight, loftier thoughts and sentiments, and nobility. Don’t settle for being a curmudgeon for the rest of the finite time on this earth allotted to you.

Are “you conservatives” pledged to be stupid and ignorant? The KKK is a terrorist group, but you never have complained about that; the Oklahoma bomber was a terrorist—where’s your indignation over that???

For many years America was welcoming to immigrants. In fact the ease of becoming an “American” was one of the root causes of the War of 1812. British sailors would desert, and within hours of reaching America would become “Americans”. The Royal Navy had trouble accepting that they could not reclaim their deserters.

It struck me as so absurd that I had to respond to Godzilla below. Flight into Egypt? Jesus and family illegal immigrants? But Trump, wishing people Merry Christmas. Can you name me one of the 7 Cardinal Virtues that Trump embodies? As for the 7 Deadly Sins, I think he misses sloth.

Then there’s kep. Blaming President Obama because some hate him for the color of his skin and his success. He’s got to be, what is it, punking us?

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free” /// yes DONNY DUMP I believes knows that he just adds ill put them to work for me these great worked that worked years and some all their life’s to make them the best in the world at their jobs and the DUMPSTER WILL PUT THEM TO WORK FOR HIM (being the nice clown he is ) for $1 dollar a day . and the DUMPSTER will and has sign contract’s with all these hard worker and at the end when the job was done and all was great DONNY SCUMBAG DUMP stiffed them and didn’t want to and didn’t pay them the more for the job thy did for the POS

It is one of the ironies of these past 50 years to see so many in America arise unitedly against what America stands for, and ignorant of the circumstances and hardships that forced their forebears to flee to America for refuge.

The inscription you cite is one which enlightened people like yourself need to bring up in order to remind those who blithely ignore their past circumstances, and point out of the stark contradictions of a descendant of the Drumpf clan.
I will continue to point out these contradictions as well.

Maybe, just maybe, someone residing in “The Red Zone” in America will get the message.

Like some special “Ring of Ignorance”, a la LOTR, Trump and his supporters have been bound by an absence of knowledge and common-sense. Ignorance of what it means to be compassionate, being dismissive of the plight of others, has profound effects and lasting consequences.

More important, in some ways at least, do you think any of his “Christian” supporters have read the only description of the last judgement attributed to their get-out-of-Hell free card himself in Matthew 25, where “faith” and “dogma” and “relationships” (not religion) with the almighty are not even hinted at, but only kindnesses offered to people with no expectation of reward – including “I was a stranger, and you took me in” – are the keys to being “saved”?

Oh indeed. There are sections of the Bible I think Trump & his supporters would best ignore.

Jesus gave us two commands. Honor God and love one another.

That’s why I’m puzzled and put off when mike wishes people a “Merry Christmas” with the intention of insulting or offending them.

As to the terms and conditions of salvation? Blessedly, that’s above my pay grade. For myself, when I stand before the Judgment Throne, I want God to be pleased with what I’ve done with my life. I recognize far too many of my own failings though.

Ida, please include a disclaimer in front of Christians in posts like that above….people who claim to be Christians but support the GOP, are not, true Christians. I can assure you there are millions of ‘true Christians’ in America that would have absolutely nothing to do with Trump, his supporters or the GOP.

One of the many things about republicans that galls me is their insistence that they are good Christians at the same time that they want to take away the safety nets and “Let ’em die!” if the poor can’t pay for their own healthcare. Have they not read in the scriptures that “the poor will always be with you”? And are we not admonished to help and take care of them? Can they not see that holding one position negates the other?

I keep reading about the relationship between President-elect Trump and Putin. They have never met. They both say they respect the other. That doesn’t make for a BFF in any way of thinking. While President-elect Trump wants to completely eliminate ISIS, Obama wants to give ISIS more power and help. A President Trump will not draw a red line for ISIS, he will destroy ISIS.

Of all the lies and absurdity you have posted here – and that’s been a lot, including your mindless continuing recital of the most trivial and exaggerated things as Obama’s and Hillary’s “lies”, all of which put together fail to challenge Trumps during this campaign as the worst – your “mindreading” about what Obama supposedly “wants” may be the best combination of malice, flagrant dishonesty, and just plain stupidity you’ve achieved yet.
But I’m sure you have your sights set on yet lower expressions of human depravity for future posts.

We had a person, who is considerably braver than people like itsfun, wrote a letter to our newspaper saying that all Democrats were liars. Democrats are liars? Whoa. I don’t like either party and belong to neither. I can tell you one thing, I wouldn’t want to buy a used car from a Republican. In fact, I don’t believe a word they say. Is that profiling? No, it is just the prediction of future behavior is to look at past behavior. I have friends in both parties and I can tell you from experience, my Democrat friends are honest. If I bought a used car from one of them, I would not even have to have a mechanic look at it. Their word is good.

good question independent . how much time do you have . ? on what kind of a moron that clown is heck ive been posting that for a long time now telling just how much a moron that POS is . and I do believe I just chipped the ice berg lol

I often feel a bit foolish “debating” points here but I try to avoid insults or name calling unless my opponent chooses to go there in which case I can be pretty nasty. I like to point out the fallacies or lack of evidential support and see how they respond.

I’m not sure how to define “smarter”. Some have seen the false premises underlying their conclusions or we have clarified our points and found that we do agree on some things. I think that has to be the starting point because as long as we keep insulting each other and blaming the “other side” for our ills the demagogues like Trump & Clinton will continue to rule and the oligarchy will continue sucking all the life out of our country and the world.

Unfortunately most of the “debaters” here only want to prove they are superior to their antagonist and of course there are the trolls who just want to provoke a reaction. I’ll admit I do enjoy ridiculing the a$$holes but I like to be sure they fit that category before I unload on them. For sure we the people need to find a way to come together or our country is in it’s final days resembling anything like what we call America.

BUT ITSACLOWN is to wrapped up in his own stupidity the work smarter is like a cancer to him (and who knows he might like and want it ) he so out of touched one will never understand him even himself is loss in his empty head

you stay hiding behind your keyboard like a coward clown ones in a while you lash out acting the tough guy (which all knows your not ) but you want to state things as you are hiding behind your comp. don’t you research at all ? before making the fool out of yourself ? >>

In the final presidential debate of the 2016 election Donald Trump became flustered when Hillary Clinton called him a “puppet” of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who U.S. intelligence agencies suspect is meddling in the presidential election. “You’re the puppet,” Trump spat into the microphone, before claiming he “doesn’t know” Putin.

“I never met Putin,” he said. “This is not my best friend. But if the United States got along with Russia, it wouldn’t be so bad.”

But by Trump’s own admission, he has met Putin multiple times.

Trump himself has said, on camera, that he talked to Putin in 2014, when he hosted the Miss Universe pageant in Russia. He said in a speech at the National Press Club that year: “I was in Moscow recently and I spoke, indirectly and directly, with President Putin, who could not have been nicer, and we had a tremendous success.”<<< so is this a lie too or is DONNY DUMP telling his first lie here ? your nothing BUT A COWARD CLOWN yes to cap it off in your childish ways (the way you like it ) blaaaaaaaaaaaaaa blaaaaaaaaaaaaa blaaaaaa BLAAAAAAAAAAA BLAAAAAAAAAA BLAAAAAAAAA your CC=coward clown

Problem is your opinions are virtually always lies – just as what Trump always says. Trump is such a pathological liar that he thinks his lies are telling the truth; apparently, just like you!!!

Although he’s recently just said he’s never met Putin, that’s in contrast to at least several times in the past when he’s sworn that they have met and that he’s spoken to him directly.

See this Mr. pathological liar!!!

In the final presidential debate of the 2016 election Donald Trump became flustered when Hillary Clinton called him a “puppet” of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who U.S. intelligence agencies suspect is meddling in the presidential election. “You’re the puppet,” Trump spat into the microphone, before claiming he “doesn’t know” Putin.

“I never met Putin,” he said. “This is not my best friend. But if the United States got along with Russia, it wouldn’t be so bad.”

But by Trump’s own admission, he has met Putin multiple times. Trump himself has said, on camera, that he talked to Putin in 2014, when he hosted the Miss Universe pageant in Russia. He said in a speech at the National Press Club that
year: “I was in Moscow recently and I spoke, indirectly and directly, with President Putin, who could not have been nicer, and we had a tremendous success.”

More recently, during a Republican primary debate last November, Trump claimed he met Putin a second time when they were both guests on 60 Minutes. “I got to know him very well,” he bragged.

opinion’s are like BUTT HOLES some are bigger then others . then there is your which with your personality has to be the biggest BUTT HOLE there is . and yes of course nothing go’s better with out your childish coward rant you so love blaaaaa blaaaaaaaa blaa BLAAAAAA BLAAAAAAA BLAA and BTW no opinion here this is all FACTS

In the final presidential debate of the 2016 election Donald Trump became flustered when Hillary Clinton called him a “puppet” of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who U.S. intelligence agencies suspect is meddling in the presidential election. “You’re the puppet,” Trump spat into the microphone, before claiming he “doesn’t know” Putin.

“I never met Putin,” he said. “This is not my best friend. But if the United States got along with Russia, it wouldn’t be so bad.”

But by Trump’s own admission, he has met Putin multiple times.

Trump himself has said, on camera, that he talked to Putin in 2014, when he hosted the Miss Universe pageant in Russia. He said in a speech at the National Press Club that year: “I was in Moscow recently and I spoke, indirectly and directly, with President Putin, who could not have been nicer, and we had a tremendous success

ok so it be said that the DONNY DUMP DUMPSTER >>((Donald Trump’s Values Are In Direct Conflict With The Founding Fathers’)) seeing that he is doing this can the ones in office stop the CLOWN CAR DRIVER ? cant himself change The United States Constitution right ? as for all the swamp crap the DUMPSTER is now filling up in Washington (when he was to drain it ) seems to me drain has nothing to do with the DUMPSTER’s plans he want to over-flow the so called swamp with his own special gang of BULL CRAP . still what ever he dose and all the trash he puts into his problem child minded sits all those jobs have a rate of the government pay right ? ok like for one job he filled (what ever it is ) he cant give a billionaire that takes his job more then the rate set by the government right ? the S-of-State only make one amount of money no matter what being thy are working for the government right ? im asking if a billionaire dose the job of the SOS that rate is say $200,000 a year the DUMPSTER cant give that one that holds that job like $200 million a year right ?

Excellent points, though I would point out that Ms. Tucker, whom I greatly admire, is wrong about the division between Sunnis and Shiites dating back “thousands of years.” In fact Islam was founded in 610, just 1,406 years ago, and the split between Ali and Abu Bakr began about 632. So not quite “thousands of years,” but “nearly 1,400 years ago” would be closer to the mark.

Someone below, A.D. Reed, correctly pointed out that it wasn’t thousands of years ago that Islam split, but a little over 1200 years ago. But the real issue stands—that the major division with Islam is a primary source of the chaos wracking the Muslim world; Christianity, Judaism, and other prior Religions suffer similar divisions with devastating consequences—take the “30 Years War in Europe” several centuries ago.

Divisions along race, party affiliation, skin color, ethnicity, nationalism, cause similar upheavals, and Donald Trump, Putin, China, and their affiliates, and others, directly fuel the fires of divisiveness, thus keeping America and the rest of the world in a state of danger and possible global disaster . And that’s not hyperbole.